Living Here: Research facilities

Hampton Roads — and the Peninsula in particular — boasts an array of world-class research facilities. Here are some notables:

NASA Langley Research Center

The center in Hampton was founded in 1917 as the nation's first civilian aeronautics laboratory. Almost every commercial and military plane produced in this country has been tested at the wind tunnels there. Langley's name is built on aeronautics research.

Engineers in Hampton helped push pilots past the sound barrier and continue to make significant contributions to making air travel faster, safer, quieter and more efficient. The center, with a projected FY2015 budget of $760 million and about 3,530 civil service and contract employees, was also the original training site for NASA's first astronauts in the Mercury program. Neil Armstrong practiced moon landings at the center's massive gantry.

Langley researchers are involved in many aspects of the post-space shuttle era of exploration. Several teams are working on various aspects of the next-generation launch rockets and crew capsule. Langley researchers were responsible for millions of computer simulations that allowed the Curiosity rover to land safely on Mars to search for evidence that the red planet once supported life.

The facility's civil service and contract employees also develop technologies to make airliners safer, faster, quieter, greener and more fuel efficient and to help transform the national air transportation system; study Earth's atmosphere and support space missions through structure and materials analysis. It has a civil service payroll of about $265 million.

Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility

The facility is a national nuclear physics laboratory in Newport News operated by the U.S. Department of Energy. Known as Jefferson Lab — and shortened by locals to "Jeff Lab" — its equipment allows scientists from around the world to peer inside subatomic particles and study the nucleus of the atom, where quarks and gluons act as the building blocks of protons and neutrons.

Scientists at Jeff Lab also use their knowledge of particle physics for medical purposes. One team is building imaging devices that can detect smaller cancer tumors than standard methods. The technology has already been commercially developed by Newport News-based Dilon Technologies, and might be developed to detect other types of cancer.

Virginia Institute of Marine Science

The institute provides research, education and guidance to government, industry and the community. It also operates the School of Marine Science, a graduate school at the College of William and Mary.

Many scientists there focus research on the beleaguered Chesapeake Bay, but VIMS' expertise is noted around the world, including the effects of climate change on coral reefs and polar ice. Local projects include studying how pollution harms the bay, investigating fish kills and algae blooms and seeking to restore the bay's depleted oyster population. VIMS also has restoration programs focusing on the bay's seagrass and blue crab stock.

The institute was chartered in 1940 and is located on the York River at Gloucester Point.

Eastern Virginia Medical School

The school opened in Norfolk in 1973 and since then has graduated more than 5,000 health professionals, with nearly 3,500 alumni practicing around the state.

Every day more than 150 full-time EVMS physicians and surgeons care for more than 1,500 people throughout the area.

The facility has an $824 million impact on the regional economy every year.

EVMS is a nationally known education and research center, and its faculty members see patients and conduct research in a wide range of specialties, including cancer, diabetes, geriatrics, women's health and sleep medicine.

Research in reproductive medicine conducted at the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine led to the birth of the nation's first child through in vitro fertilization.